These carefully prepared answers will never cease to be of profound interest to the student of human affairs. They indicate unmistakably the conservative tendency of Mr. Lincoln, and his position at the time as to the legal status of the institution of slavery. But "courage mounteth with occasion." Five years later, and from the hand that penned the answers given came the great proclamation emancipating a race. The hour had struck--and slavery perished. The compromises upon which it rested were, in the mighty upheaval, but as the stubble before the flame. Recurring to the Freeport debates, Mr. Lincoln propounded to his opponent four interrogatories as follows: "First, if the people of Kansas shall by means entirely unobjectionable in all other respects adopt a State Constitution and ask admission into the Union under it before they have the requisite number of inhabitants according to the bill--some ninety-three thousand-- will you vote to admit them? Second, can the people of a United States Territory in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution? Third, if the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a rule of political action? Fourth, are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in disregard of how such acquisition may affect the nation on the slavery question?" The questions propounded reached the marrow of the controversy, and were yet to have a much wider field for discussion. This was especially true of the second of the series. Upon this widely divergent--irreconcilable--views were entertained by Northern and Southern Democrats. The evidence of this is to be found in the respective national platforms upon which Douglas and Mr. Breckenridge were two years later rival candidates of a divided party. The second interrogatory of Mr. Lincoln clearly emphasized this conflict of opinion as it existed at the time of the debates. It is but just, however, to Douglas--of whom little that is kindly has in late years been spoken--to say that there was nothing in the question to cause him surprise or embarrassment. It would be passing strange if during the protracted debates with Senators representing extreme and antagonistic views, a matter so vital as the interpretation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act--as indicated by the interrogatory--had never been under discussion. Conclusive evidence on this point is to be found in the speech delivered by Senator Douglas at Bloomington, July 16, forty-two days before the Freeport debate, in which he said: